Kafka In The Desert

A man wakes beneath an unbroken sky, the sand whispering riddles to his skin. He does not know how he arrived, only that he must explain himself to a judge who never appears. The wind carves hieroglyphs in the dunes, letters shifting before they can be read. He follows them, searching for meaning, but the further he walks, the more the horizon recedes. At night, he dreams of a door in the sand— a door that has always been his, but each time he reaches for the handle, a voice behind him clears its throat. He turns. No one is there. Only footprints dissolving in the wind, only the weight of an accusation he can no longer recall.